1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to animal traps and more specifically, to traps particularly suitable for catching mice and other small rodents in a disposable container which may be readily discarded after its use and without requiring exposure of the trapped rodent.
b 2. Prior Art
The art of animal traps is old and many different trap configurations have been designed in an attempt to provide a reliable and inexpensive device for capturing and disposing of small animals such as mice and other rodents. The most common mousetrap of current use is the well-known bait spring device which has achieved commercial success primarily because it is of simple design and relatively low cost. Unfortunately, the bait loaded spring-type mousetrap is disadvantageous in a number of respects. One such disadvantage is the possibility of injury to the user in setting the trap if a spring loaded bar designed to kill the rodent is inadvertently released while fingers or other human body parts are in the way. The risk of injury is especially high to young children or household pets whose curiosity gets the better of them. Another significant disadvantage to the conventional low-cost mousetrap is the distastefulness of having to observe or even clean up the blood or other parts of the rodent that has been caught and killed by the trap.
Thus, there has been a long-felt need for a simple and low cost rodent trap that is at least as inexpensive as the aforementioned conventional spring loaded trap but which does not present the noted disadvantages of such spring loaded traps. A number of attempts have been made to provide a trap which satisfies these criteria, but typically either the cost or complexity or both and the reliability of such traps have been less than desirable and the aforementioned long-felt need has remained unsatisfied. By way of example, the following U.S. patents disclose animal traps which are relevant to varying degrees to the present invention:
No. 1,240,248: Pease, et al PA1 No. 1,273,185: Reich PA1 No. 1,581,297: Schmuck
The patent to Pease et al discloses an animal trap including a tube that is tapered so that the greater weight of the body lies near the open end which may be closed by a gate which is adapted for vertical motion within a pair of vertical sills. When the animal runs into the trap, the animals weight unbalances the trap towards the rear causing the gate to close trapping the animal inside. A similar concept is disclosed in the Reich patent in which an animal trap in the form of a mailbox-shaped tube is again adapted to rotate about a foot which is integral and at right angles to a door. When the weight of the animal forces the tube to rotate rearwardly about the foot, the foot collapses forward thereby closing the door. A forwardly positioned plate assures that the initial weight of the trap is such that the trap will be inclined towards the forward portion thereof until the animal enters the trap. Still another disclosure of a device that uses a similar concept is shown in the patent to Schmuck in which a rectangular tube is again balanced on a V-shaped fulcrum support. The open end of the tube is initially inclined downwardly and includes a door or closure which is designed to lower automatically within a pair of parallel slots when the weight of the animal forces the rearward portion of the tube to be lowered and the forward open portion of the tube to be raised.
It can be seen that all of the aforementioned prior art patents disclose animal traps which attempt to overcome the aforementioned deficiencies of the spring loaded conventional trap. More specifically, each discloses a device which obviates the aforementioned risk of injury to the user while setting the trap and each discloses a device which is designed to contain the trapped animal thereby removing the requirement for observing and/or cleaning up the mess created by the spring loaded device. Unfortunately, in overcoming these disadvantages, the patented devices result in additional disadvantages which render them commercially undesirable for providing substitutes for the inexpensive conventional trap described above. For example, in each instance of the aforementioned prior art patents, the door closing mechanism is far too complex and unreliable thereby reducing the probability of trapping the animal. Furthermore, each such device is of a generally complex configuration which is not conducive to low cost manufacturing techniques and which therefore cannot be produced at a cost which would permit them to be competitive in the marketplace as compared to the aforementioned conventional spring loaded devices.